The spots of blackness in my vision make it hard to know how much time has passed. It feels like only a second before Zeke runs out with his pa’s rifle in hand.
“Dan, what are you doing?” Zeke cries out, skidding to a stop.
“Shoot him, Zeke.” Mr. Whittemore stares me down between the blackouts, until black is all I see.
“What?”
“Do as I say, boy!”
I hear Zeke placing the rifle against his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I plead.
“Come on, Danny, just put down the axe,” Zeke says. I hear the tears in his voice even if he isn’t actually crying. “You don’t have to hurt anyone.”
“Zeke, you best mind me.”
I drop the axe to the ground at the same moment the gun goes off. The bullet rips into my bad leg.
I fall to the ground, on top of the axe.
“Oh, God. Oh, God,” Zeke repeats over and over.
“Give me that.” Mr. Whittemore snatches the rifle from his son, and then sticks the barrel in my face.
The axe blade is in my side, making every breath like a stabbing knife, sharp pain that almost makes me forget about the bright throbbing in my thigh. My hands are sticky with blood but I can’t get up for that round black hole that consumes my vision.
“What the fuck you doing out here, huh?”
“I was just helping Zeke split the wood, sir,” I manage to say. My mouth is slick with blood. “I was just trying to help.”
“You want to kill me? Is that what you were doing?”
“No…” I cough, there’s a tickle in my lungs. “No, sir.”
“I’ll ask you again, boy. Do you want to kill me?”
I shake my head.
The rifle disappears from my view, not that I can see it very well at this point anyway.
“There’s a lot of blood,” Zeke whispers.
“Get that wheelbarrow. He can stay in the barn.”
Are they going to help me? I’m going to die, I’m suddenly sure of it.
When Zeke and his father pick me up by my armpits and my legs to heft me into the wheelbarrow, the axe slides from my side and I vomit all over myself. I feel something come loose in my leg, the muscle tearing again and I pass out.
A brief moment of consciousness as the wheelbarrow trundles over the yard, causing my head to bang against the metal rim, then black again.
I gasp awake in the darkness, and keep gasping. My side is gaping open, and little sticks are poking into me. Hay. In the barn, in a stall. The floor under me smells like old cow shit and sawdust.
It hurts like hell to sit up, and I black out a couple of times in the process, but I have to get up. I have to get to a hospital or something. I’m actually a little surprised I’m not dead yet. The coppery scent of blood thickens the air.
My eyes adjust quickly to the darkness, maybe a wolf thing, maybe not. There are wooden walls around me, some of them halfway up wood, then metal bars. I’m in a stall. The door is closed. I assume it’s locked too. But everything I need is here.
Whether the first aid kit on the floor beside me is Zeke’s doing or Mr. Whittemore’s I don’t know. I imagine Mr. Whittemore leaving me here to die, and Zeke sneaking in with the medical supplies while his father was in the outhouse. Maybe Zeke was prepared to fix me up himself, and Mr. Whittemore found him and beat him and forced him back inside. “You ain’t helpin’ no murderous trespasser,” he might have said. I can’t imagine they’d expect me to fix myself, yet there it is. No whiskey this time. The gauze, iodine, needle and thread are all there, laid out waiting for me.
I’ve got to get my side stitched up first; I can feel the damp of blood all down the side of my body. I peel up my shirt, throat working to keep the vomit down. The fabric comes up with a slick, sticky sound and pulls off whatever clot had been forming there. With slippery, shaking fingers I try to thread the needle with only the moonlight to go by. A few failed attempts later, I roll completely onto my good side and rest.
At least the need to cough is gone, although breathing continues to hurt. It feels like the axe blade is still stuck in there.
Lying there, I finally get the needle threaded, after about twenty tries. I knot the thread, then twist
black black black
Breathe, and take the washcloth. Dip it into the bucket of water some farm animal probably drank out of. Wash away a bit of the blood, enough to see where the cut it.
Oh God, it’s deep. Blood wells up out of it. It looks like a terrible mouth in my ribcage, puking up black blood.
I swallow. This is gonna suck without the whiskey.
My hands shake more, trying to hold them at the weird angle. I pinch the edges of the skin together with my fingers, and punch the needle through. Bile rises in my throat. My fingers slip in the blood and the wound gapes open again. The sewing focuses my concentration and takes my mind off the pain somewhat. It’s slow going, though, and by the time I finish I collapse back into the hay. Finally the shaking stops enough for me to clean it with the iodine and tape some gauze over it.
Now for my leg.
* * *
After all that, I can’t sleep. I can’t pass out. I’m wide awake, sitting up in the dark, my bare back against the rough boards of the wall. I’ve propped myself up in such a way that it doesn’t hurt so much to breathe.
I’m so stupid. If I could’ve just put down that axe, everything would be okay. I don’t know what it was that put my brain in panic mode, maybe the way Mr. Whittemore sneaked up behind me the way no one has that I can remember. I always know when someone’s coming, unless I’m dead asleep. My own fault, for getting so carried away with splitting wood. I lost control. Maybe if Mr. Whittemore was a gentle man like old Bobby I wouldn’t have freaked. But the first thing I ever saw Mr. Whittemore do was hit his kid, for no good reason.
I hope Zeke is okay, and not paying for hesitating when his father told him to shoot me. Not getting beat because he didn’t kill me with his shot.
I need to leave. It’s back to like it was before, where no one is safe around me. Why I ever listened to some crazy dog-dream Kayla sent to me, I don’t know. It’s all crazy. Who the hell am I going to help? Around me, everybody is in danger.
baby bones crunching between my teeth
I squeeze my eyes shut, dig the heels of my palms into my eye sockets but still
blood and bones and a little purple barrette
I throw up again. I manage to lean over when I do so I don’t get any more vomit on my clothes. Shivering.
Of course, the Whittemores didn’t leave me a knife or scissors or anything. Nothing to kill myself with. Do they hope I’ll bleed to death out here? What’s the purpose of keeping me? I suppose so I don’t run off and tell the police or something. A laugh bubbles up out of my throat. It echoes in the barn, and there’s a shuffling and the quiet bleat of a goat in response. I’m not going anywhere fast. I’d have died out in the wilderness.
Why can’t things ever stay simple? If only it could have been me and Lila, heading out to Texas. None of this werewolf shit, no one around to make me angry or scared, and Lila – I mean Kayla – would have been there to keep me calm with that weird thing she does. I remember those autumn nights curled up in the hay with Lila in my arms, her fur warming me. I can almost feel her heat with my arms curled around myself.
When the early sun slants in through the barn windows, I drift off to sleep.
-54-
I wake up in the late afternoon. Everything has a gold sheen on it, the hay and the wooden walls and the dust motes floating in the air. I’ve listed to one side as I slept, and when I push myself upright a black numbness fades in for a few moments, then clears.
Mr. Whittemore and Zeke must have come out here earlier, to milk the goats and feed the animals. In my sleep I didn’t hear them.
There’s a plate where the first aid stuff was. A lump of bread on it, and a lumpy brown glob that smells like rabbit stew.
&nb
sp; It pains me to move, but I get there, and eat everything in record time. I’m not even bothering to chew and several times I have to pause to swallow lumps of food too big for my throat. There’s nothing to drink except the water in the bucket, so that’s what I wash it all down with. I get over the disgust I had for the dirty water yesterday; hell, I’ve eaten out of garbage cans. This is probably more sanitary. I lick the plate clean and place it back in the sawdust.
I raise my eyes to the stall door.
For the next half hour or more my goal is to crawl to the door and pull myself up. While the food in my belly has given me renewed energy, it’s also made my stomach swell out and I can feel my sloppy stitches straining to hold my skin together.
I reach up to the bars on the top half of the stall door with my opposite hand so my side doesn’t stretch any more, and try to get my good leg under me. Finally I’m standing.
As I suspected, the stall door is locked. Not locked, with a padlock, but with the sliding bar. I edge over to the corner and thread my arm through the bars. Feel across the wood of the door with my palm, find the cold metal bolt. Slide it open.
I stop short of opening the door, suddenly alert. Now that I’m standing I can smell him, over the scents of cow manure and sawdust and grain and the crusted vomit on my pants.
“I see you’re awake,” Mr. Whittemore says.
He’s sitting in the aisle with his rifle across his lap. His steely eyes meet mine.
“Yes, sir,” I reply.
“Think you’re gonna just walk on outta here?”
I swallow, my throat so dry it clicks. “I was hoping.”
(please just let me go, don’t have made me go through all that and now you’re gonna kill me)
“You think you’ll get far?”
My hand that’s hanging out through the stall bars retreats. I look down at my leg, visible through the tear I made in my jeans. I could pass for Frankenstein’s monster with all the dark rows of stitches holding my leg together.
“No.”
(but when I was a wolf my leg didn’t hurt so bad maybe if I turn into a wolf the pain will go away and I can run I can run faster than a bullet maybe)
“That’s right. So how about you go have a seat and I’ll lock this back up and we’ll have a little talk and see where we’re at.”
(if only he was being mean to me but I can smell something on him not anger not fear but protection? if only he was being mean I could change and run out of here)
I back up, use the wall to keep me upright. When my back’s against the wall where I sat before, Mr. Whittemore stands up and locks me in. I slide to the floor, careful of my side.
My hands are in loose fists in my lap, shaking ever so slightly
caged rat in a cage trapped
“I live with Zeke out here to keep him away from punks like you,” Mr. Whittemore starts. “Zeke ought to have left you there in that trap that day.”
I nod, knowing where he’s going. “If I was dead, things would be better.”
Mr. Whittemore studies me.
“You got parents?” he asks.
There is a long pause, as I’m not sure how to answer him. If I tell him about my father, sure enough he’ll stick that rifle through the bars and shoot me dead.
“I ran away – ”
“That’s not what I asked. I asked if you have parents. You got a mother?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Does she love you?”
My eyes itch. “Yes.”
“Does she know where you are?”
I shake my head.
“You got a father?”
When I don’t answer he repeats himself, then asks a third time.
“No. Not anymore. He’s dead.” Mr. Whittemore waits, or maybe he’s just thinking about what I said, and the words tumble from my lips. “I killed him.”
Mr. Whittemore pauses, then nods.
“You don’t understand,” I say, my voice loud enough to cause the goat in the stall next door to bleat in annoyance. “You don’t know what he did. What he– I– he was– I didn’t do it on purpose. Not really.”
“How long ago?”
I glare at him. “What, are you gonna try to get some reward for turning me in?”
Mr. Whittemore looks at me with that impenetrable face. I sigh.
“Three years ago.”
The silence that follows stretches up to the rafters. Mr. Whittemore commences pacing the aisle in front of my stall, his boots scuffing the floor. I wait for him to decide it’s best to kill the murderer and ask questions later. I wait for him to call to Zeke, tell him to head up to town to let the police know he’s got a wanted killer trapped in his barn. I wait for him to slap a padlock on the stall and leave me here to starve to death.
“I can’t even imagine what a man could do to his child to make that child turn against him,” Mr. Whittemore says finally. And he looks at me.
Does he want me to tell him all about it? Does he want specific details? Does he want to hear that I was molested or something?
I don’t say a word.
“I don’t much like strangers,” Mr. Whittemore says. “I don’t like people meddlin’ in my business. I like to do things for myself. When Zeke was born, I got a little crazy about it. Convinced my wife to move out here with me, convinced it’d be best for Zeke to grow up without worryin’ that he’d be doin’ drugs in middle school and learning about sex on television, and havin’ other people tell me how to raise my kid. We get along, Zeke and I. After Pauline passed on, it was hard bein’ on my own. But we do all right.”
“How did your wife die?”
“Well, it’s hard to say, as I’m no doctor. I don’t put much stock in hospitals and health insurance and all that. I believe if it’s your time to go, then you’d best go. I came close to bringing her to a hospital… sometimes I wish I had.”
I watch Mr. Whittemore’s face. He really believed that a hospital wouldn’t have helped his wife. I suppose it isn’t that hard to believe.
“Zeke took it hard. He tried to keep on a bright face for me but I know inside he was hurtin.’ Was hurtin’ still, until you came along.” Mr. Whittemore clears his throat. “Watchin’ you with Zeke made me think I did something wrong, raising him all alone, with no friends.”
I wonder if Mr. Whittemore can tell I never really had any friends growing up, either. Kids at school weren’t all that kind to me. I hung out with Kayla, mostly. The townies looked down on us, thinking we were poor, and even though we were from the rural areas outside of town, we didn’t know any of the other farm kids. I figured out early on that they thought we were poor white trash.
He’s giving me hope, talking like this. I fight the feeling rising up in me. He won’t want me to stay here and be Zeke’s friend, not after I nearly killed him with an axe.
“I’d like if you stayed out here until you’re healed up a bit,” he says. “I’ll send Zeke out with some dinner for you.”
He must’ve seen my eyes brighten because he adds, “Zeke will have his gun, so don’t even think about trying anything with him.”
Mr. Whittemore’s footsteps fade out of the barn. So I’m a prisoner here, sort of. I could leave, if I thought I could walk further than the end of the aisle.
I can’t bear to face Zeke pointing a gun at me again.
I close my eyes and try to sleep, and keep them closed even when I hear Zeke enter the barn.
-55-
It gets harder to pretend I’m asleep all the time. All I’m getting is bread and jerky to eat and you can’t look convincingly asleep when your stomach is growling in a painful way. Also, I need stuff, like more gauze and soap.
I’m starting to get jealous of the goats and cows and pigs and all the attention Mr. Whittemore and Zeke pay them.
Some mornings when Zeke and Mr. Whittemore come in to do the milking and the morning feed, I watch them. They ignore me and don’t even look in my direction except when they come in to leave food,
so it’s easy to pretend they don’t know I’m here. I’m separate from them, a voyeur.
They each know their tasks. Not many words are needed. Mr. Whittemore likes to whistle sometimes. Zeke talks to the pigs when he dumps their feed into the trough. “Eh, Maggie May, give Tiny some room. Bonnie, whatsa matter with you?” His voice is low when he speaks to them, like he knows his father wouldn’t approve of naming their food.
I lie on my back, staring up at the roof. I imagine what might have happened if I hadn’t left Kayla. I’d probably be home by now, no stitches. Maybe I’d be in the middle of some war. It is beyond my comprehension, the werewolf war she described. So there are different packs, and they each have their own territory. What’s the problem? Have they ever tried to sit down and discuss it? I mean, our pack seems to be down to Kayla and me, so really, if they waited like 80 years, we’d both be dead, no need for a war.
At night, I try to change into a wolf. I take off the remains of my pants and my shirt and crouch in the hay. My leg throbs in this position, and I can barely breathe. I just know that if I can become the wolf I can get out of here. I’ll heal faster or maybe my injuries will disappear once I’m in another form.
The wolf doesn’t save me.
A few days after I found myself locked in a stall, I sit up and wait for Zeke to come with my dinner. He’s so used to me being asleep that he doesn’t even look at me until after he’s opened the door. He jumps back when he sees my eyes open and watching him.
“H-hi,” he says.
The gun is tucked under his arm. He has to hold it awkwardly as he puts the plate down on the ground.
“I could use some new bandages,” I say.
His eyes flicker to my leg, where he shot me. He nods.
“Um, and maybe you could give me a shovel or something to clean up – ” I gesture to the corner I’ve been using as a bathroom. “You know.”
“Okay. Sure.” His head bobs up and down. He backs out of the stall and slides the door shut.
His footsteps hurry out of the barn.
I chew the bread and jerky waiting for him to return, which isn’t for a long while. The bread is hard and crumbly, and the jerky is chewy, and my jaw starts to hurt. What I wouldn’t give for a vegetable or something hot and soft. Mr. Whittemore must have told Zeke that my needs aren’t all that important. Maybe he told Zeke to do his lessons first, or check the traps, or whatever. Maybe he slapped Zeke upside the head and told him he didn’t give a shit what I wanted. “That kid is lucky to be alive,” Mr. Whittemore might have said in his growly voice. “He’s lucky I don’t believe in murder.”